Today is the United Nations Day for the Eradication of Violence Against Women, to be followed by 16 days of global activism on the issue. Ho hum, I hear the gentlemen of the press muttering.

Most mornings, I listen to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, the flagship agenda-setter for the day's news. In recent months, listening as the show reported extensively on yet another youth stabbing, the question frequently bubbling inside me is: "Why don't the media cover the violent murders of women killed by their partners in the same way?"

These murderers are rarely thrown into the media spotlight, while each time a youth is murdered the event is treated with shock and outrage and given headline status. A small minority of victims of domestic violence and murder are men but in four out of five domestic murders it is women who are victimised. Just look at the statistics. Violence against women is a pandemic more extensive than HIV/Aids. It is the main cause of death and disability globally for women aged 15 to 44 – rape and gross bodily violence cause more death and permanent disability than cancer, motor vehicle accidents, war and malaria combined.

Why the difference in media coverage and political outrage?

In the UK alone, between one and two women are killed each week by a current partner or ex-partner. The number of women murdered each year by their partner or ex-partner is 20% higher than the number of youngsters knifed to death in London and other British cities. Last year alone, 85 women were murdered by a violent partner or ex-partner compared to 70 youths knifed to death. Would anyone have guessed at those comparative stats? Doubtful – there is deeply inadequate attention paid by press and parliament to the everyday horror of many women's lives, even in this civilised country.

Astonishingly, women are more at risk of violence in intimate relationships than anywhere else. According to the World Health Organisation, more than 50% of women in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Peru and Tanzania were subjected to physical or sexual violence by intimate partners.

In the UK, the extent of violence against women from their partners and ex-partners is way in excess of teenage stabbings. One in four women in the UK will experience domestic violence in their lifetime. One domestic violence incident is reported to the police every minute. The total cost of domestic violence to services is estimated to be £3.1bn and the cost to the economy is £2.7bn.

What is the underlying reason for these double standards in media coverage? Is it that the media and British society consider the murder of a teenage youth more shocking than the murder of a woman by her once-nearest and dearest? Thirty years ago many people, including editors and journalists, were unaware of the existence of domestic violence, or even felt it was normal and OK for a man to beat his wife or girlfriend. In those days, the police were not even supposed to intervene in what was euphemistically termed "a domestic".

Unlike their predecessors, today's editors and journalists can no longer plead ignorance of the topic. In the late 1970s and early 1980s campaigner Erin Pizzey put the issue of domestic violence in the public domain. She founded Chiswick Women's Aid. Since then women's organisations such as the Fawcett Society, Southall Black Sisters, Refuge, Women's Aid, and more recently the men's White Ribbon Campaign have all drawn attention to this horrific, hidden, silent spring of violence.

All violence – whether it is against men or women or children is unacceptable in a civilised society. In the UK, much of our progress on human rights and justice have been helped forward by our free media. Journalists and editors have a moral and journalistic duty – virtually a Hippocratic oath – to name and shame the perpetrators of this cowardly crime. Otherwise, it sends a message that violence against women is still accepted and acceptable – a "normal part of family life" – and thus not newsworthy.